While we were looking at the budget, our friends at the Delaware Family Policy Council also paid attention to the senate. We all know that illegal activity at abortion mills is forbidden under FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances). Last night, the radicals decided to go after legal education and free speech. This bill needs to die. It is about view point discrimination. It creates a free speech bubble that does not apply to any other group. Blocking an entrance is already illegal regardless of the business, this bill specifically targets free speech activities.
From Jordan Warfel
Last night, the Delaware State Senate voted to pass S.B.169, a bill that threatens pro-lifers right to free speech. In yet another act of defiance toward the public, they voted to pass the bill without a committee hearing or any time for the public to view the bill or voice their concerns.
You can view S.B.169 at http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis145.nsf/vwLegislation/SB+169/$file/legis.html?open The part of the bill that is most concerning is section 2 which could ban “protest, education, or counseling” on public sidewalks within 100 feet of an abortion clinic. S.B.169 could be used to charge peaceful pro-life protesters and prayer vigil attendees with misdemeanors. We expect that the House could suspend the rules to pass S.B. 169 without a committee hearing tonight!
3 Reasons to Oppose S.B.169
1. S.B.169 is purposefully vague. Terms such as “education,” “counseling,” and “consent” are not well defined and could lead to the violation of the free speech rights of protesters and prayer vigil attendees. It is so radical that parents would not even be allowed to talk their own daughters out of having an abortion within 100 feet of the abortion clinic. If your 14 year old daughter decided to have an abortion and you followed her to the abortion clinic to try to change her mind, you would be charged with a misdemeanor!!
2. S.B. 169 may be unconstitutional. If the vague language of S.B.169 is used to prohibit free speech on public sidewalks and right of ways, the bill could be struck down in federal court as a violation of the free speech rights afforded to us by the U.S. Constitution.
3. S.B. 169 will be tied up in court costing the tax payers of Delaware money to defend the bill. In these hard financial times, the last thing Delaware needs is costly litigation to defend hastily and carelessly passed bills.
Please take the following 2 steps to stop S.B.169.
1. Find your State Representative and ask them to oppose S.B.169. You can find there phone numbers at www.delawarefamilies.org. Call them at their home number first, then their office number. Communicate the three reasons why we oppose S.B.169. Also ask them to give us a committee hearing so that we can voice our concerns about the bill. Always remember who we represent.
2. If you can manage, please take time to attend the session Tuesday night. It will go all evening into the early morning hours. Tuesday is the last night of session this year. Please consider coming to Legislative Hall one last time this year for a while in the evening to talk to your Representative.
how many republican votes did it get?
I have to go to work and the roll call is not on line for the senate. I will tell you that two of our favorite turncoats were co-sponsors Sorenson and Conner. It had 16 votes in favor. Sadly enough Rep. Cathcart is a co-sponsor in the house. This bill takes a 2/3’s majority constitutionally so passage can be blocked if we make calls. Otherwise they may not even read it and think they are voting on prohibiting illegal activity.
…two of our favorite turncoats…
Nice rhetoric.
Again, our differences ignite like a sore, infected thumb…social conservatism is not and has not been a unifying principle of the Republican Party of the whole, neither has social moderate thinking. So, to call it “our favorite…” refers to your group opposed to this bill, not the party. The party has no singular, unifying voice on social partisanship.
It is hard to be unified when your friends are trying to make you a criminal for peacefully praying and setting up a table that people can come to for education about alternatives to abortion. I thought that is what freedom to choose was about.
I can give a slight pass to people who voted on this if it was rushed through because they may not have understood it.
When you cosponsor it, I have to call you on it. I don’t care what party you are. That is where principle must triumph.
They are the ones picking this fight. I was just minding my own business and they are trying to mug me of my constitutional rights. I think the party should be united on protecting the first amendment. Maybe I am just being radical. If that is the case, then radical I will be in defense of liberty and life.
the loss of Adams is keenly felt today.
Amen, I almost wonder were we mourning for the right person. Maybe we should be mourning for ourselves and our children. Adams is likely having the best time ever.
Read this language my friend, “knowingly approaches another person, within eight feet of the person, unless such person consents, for the purpose of protest, education or counseling of such other person in the public way or area within a radius of one hundred feet from the exterior perimeter of the health care facility.”
That is creating a bubble zone of speech in violation of –I forget the court case Kokenda , when I come back– the high court ruling which says that offering a pamphlet is the heart of free speech activity and the mechanical act of handing it to someone is not a burden and can not be banned
I wish all of the education opportunities were peaceful, David. I’m not naive enough to think they are all violent and I am not naive enough to think they are all peaceful. Are you?
I will tell you this, if for some wild reason I found myself there and an ‘educator’ got into my face, as happened to a friend of mine years ago (he was an escort for patients), and poked their nose into mine with the angry vitriol that was used, and impeded my path, then I have the right to use my fists as a deterrent to the actual assault to me (my friend in this case) and to the threat of assault to the patient.
Now, if you want to have a table and discuss alternatives and do it constructively, then fine. Harrassment, assault (see above) and intimidation are other stories, period. Remember, free speech is a right, but as soon as it becomes an impediment to others, then the ’speech’ part of it comes into legal question.
The last time I checked, if you touch someone to stop them that is offensive touching. That only needs to be reported. I have been at many abortion mill activities to pray peacefully and never once seen anything like it. I have seen the other side bully people to the point where the police had to intervene and arrest them for bothering people on a public sidewalk 50 feet away who just had a little table and where praying the rosary.
I don’t know why that isn’t addressed in the bill, oh yes because it is already against the law, just like your friend’s nemesis’ activity. I believe in the rule of law. This bill undermines it; it doesn’t advance it.
To clarify my position on abortion, to prevent twisting and maiming of my words, here is part of what I wrote on my original blog, back on April 19, 2007:
In fact I myself was accosted by a clinic employee because I had a pro-life bumper sticker and went to a nearby store. When I came out the person was yelling at me because my sticker had abortion stops a beating heart and thank God one of the clients saw it and canceled. I of course resolved the conflict with a smile and a gentle I thought that you favored choice. The person backed off and we had a great 90 minute conversation. In the course of time the employee became pro-life and quit.
David, if someone is in my face and touching it within the process of their heated rhetoric and angered attitude, I am threatened, plain and simple. I also made very sure to say that I know there are peaceful protests and there are those that aren’t peaceful. Both sides have stories of how they were assaulted and most of them I would not argue. No one side is innocent, nor is everyone guilty. Unfortunately, one guilty moment among 40 innocent events will tarnish the entire set of 41. To flip this protest/education scenario, when is the last time you’ve seen a blockade/protest by pro-choicers held at a church?
I respect your position on abortion. It is respecting the gravity of the subject and grappling with tough cases. I disagree with your conclusion, but I would love to have it in law right now. It would save 90% of abortions from taking place.
I don’t see this bill as being about abortion. What I see it being about is trying to use big government to put a restriction on freedom of speech and assembly that does not exist upon any other class of people in this state. It is view point discrimination. If the bill stopped at the first paragraph, we would not be having this discussion. I would still oppose it, but it would not be worth a big fight. It is already illegal to stop a business by blocking its entrance.
Thank God for Google. In the Kokinda case, the Supreme Court permitted the postal service to enforce a rule against asking (soliciting) for donations on postal property. In that case, political activists were asking for donations while standing on a sidewalk leading from the post office building to the post office parking lot.
However, the court suggested that it would reject a rule that banned free distribution of literature on such properties. Discussing the difference, the Court said,
ISKCON, Inc. v. Lee applied the same type of philosophy to an airport which was not public property.
David - it is a form of harassment. It is perceived as harassment by the clinic staff and visitors. If it wasn’t harassment, the protestors would have no incentive to do it.
Free speech doesn’t mean you get to stand silently outside your ex-wife’s door.
If we were talking about corporate executives or politicians, you might have a point about peaceful protest. But these are medical patients and medical workers who are there for their own private reasons.
There are lots of people visiting a women’s health facility for reasons other than abortion which are nonetheless private. For example, you probably don’t know or care that Planned Parenthood does fertility counselling and pre-natal care as well as regular GYN checkups and STD screening and treatment. Heck, they even treat men.
Remember we already have laws against intimidating people and touching them. We have laws against blocking entrances. I have seen counter protests at pro-life events. I never once thought about trying to stop people even if they were yelling obnoxious things.
You know that I always stand up for freedom of speech. Once you allow government to gore on guy’s ox, it won’t be long before it comes for your cow. I will always jealously guard those precious rights.
The fact is noman there is no anger from our side 99% of the time. I wouldn’t spend 10 seconds anywhere where angry behavior is tolerated except to reign it in. Some people have issues quite apart from any thing dealing with this. We already have laws to deal with them. What this law does is try to stop the peaceful offer of alternatives in any meaningful way. Imagine an 8 foot bubble at the polling place or DMV.
You don’t have to be angry or block the entrance to harass women at a clinic. We have given up on trying to regulate your behavior, now we are simplifying things by making you move off.
Please do continue offering alternatives at your own locations. Get a phone number and rent a storefront. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
So you’re charged with a misdemeanor. Will you be prosecuted? Will you be convicted? If so, will the conviction stand on appeal?
Probably not, unlikely, and highly unlikely.
Not if you have the money to take it to federal court on constitutional questions. Unless you have about 500K or a public interest law firm, that won’t be a good strategy. If bad bills become law, they can have a chilling effect for years until they are overturned.
Noman, you are advocating tyranny. It is not a form of harassment. Thankfully the appeals and Supreme Court have struck down these attempt in the past regardless of which view point. Just today the anti gay thugs that protest military funerals won as they should have. Now if these guys won then someone respectfully handing a pamphlet on a public sidewalk certainly is protected.
Man pulls gun on woman outside Planned Parenthood
azfamily.com ^ | 7.1.09
PHOENIX — Police say a man pulled a gun on a woman standing outside a Planned Parenthood in Phoenix Wednesday morning.
July 1st, 2009 UNCUT: Police say man pointed gun at Planned Parenthood protester - A man pulled a gun on a protester outside a Planned Parenthood in Phoenix Wednesday morning.
Phoenix police Lt. Larry T. Jacobs said the man had just dropped his girlfriend off at the Planned Parenthood near Seventh and Campbell avenues. As he was leaving, one of the women outside handed him a pamphlet.
That’s when the suspect pulled a gun on the woman, pointed it at her for a few seconds and then drove off.
The victim was able to write down his license plate number and called police.
She says she was only trying to help.
Police found the man and arrested him.
No one was hurt
There would be no special protection for her under SB 169.